Anti-Mage Ethereal Blade?

What do you think? Usually in pubs, AM's rush either bfury or vanguard and then manta. Works fine but ethereal seems pretty beasty too. Only issue I have is that ethereal makes you a single target dude whereas manta can spread your use throughout the battle.

I dunno, it doesn't really give you much survivability... I'll give it a try, although I don't think it's very good.

mid game item possibly (after bf or manta, or both) - wittle down a targets mana, (or wait for them to cast) Etheral, then ulti them - it should stack, and the damage from your ulti is aoe - so if anyone is next to them, chances are they ****ed too.

That said, for the money, your just better off getting something else. I've had the same thought with Mortred. just won't work..

It's a cute combo with Mana Void and has amazing stats (highest +Agility in the game), but I wouldn't get it unless I really needed that immunity to physical damage (losing to Ursa, for example). Even then, I'd still get Vanguard and/or Battle Fury plus Manta Style first.

Imho Anti-Mage is what he is for a reason. It's not only because of his active skills that he is known to rip through heroes, lest you forget his passive "Spell Shield" is what makes him an anti-mage.

Sure it may work out in pubs or in a solo fight but imagine blasting your opponent with it in a team fight ...

1) You are anti-mage, you auto-attack your opponents for you to work, you just disabled yourself for 3 secs.
2) 3 secs is what your opponents need to nuke you down like a Clinkz.

Moreover, you already have a great nuke as an ultimate. It's like getting a blink dagger on him for the "extra mobility" :D

I'd also like to mention that Ethreal Blade on many heroes is pretty bad. Unless your Morphling. Not only is any AGI he gets basically free strength as well thus justifying the stats on ETH, his nuke scales well with agility. So getting a ****ton of agility, combined with an damage amp is the perfect synergy.

Everyone else receives subpar stats and just gets a single target static magic bonus damage from it. It's not worth it, even on nuke heavy heroes.

Pick Pugna instead if you want magic damage amp.

Basically, you just implied that Morphling's nuke is the best nuke in the game.
Morphling's nuke is 80 + 2a, a standing for agility.
To equal Lion or Lina's ult, you need about 450 agility.
In addition, Morphling is more of a right click carry, like antimage.

I wasn't trying to, and I don't see it in my post. I was simply stating that the reason why Ethreal Blade on morphling is because his nuke scales with agility which also scales with the 40% bonus. Other nukes don't. That's why top players only bother to build ethreal on morphling and never on other heroes. That combined with the fact that he can get strength from agility, which eth only gives 10 but 40 AGI. It scales constantly with agility that he gets from both items and that he can morph.

How many other nukes can you solo insta kill or near solo insta kill support/utility heroes mid-late game? Not many, because they don't scale. Him being a right clicker does nothing to diminish it's value when he can release a ****on of burst damage that fast. Only other heroes who have nukes that get anywhere near a farmed morph is Lina and Lion with ags or ethreal(which is a bad item on them too). I'm speaking of the burst damage, that is ethereal form damage+his nuke deals nearly as much damage as either ultis at level 3 with 211 AGI. Go later than 40 minutes and Morph can get near/past 2K damage.

Problem is it's weak early game, other nukes aren't. It has its weaknesses.

The only times I've seen a decent Ethereal Blade used on heroes are when Morphling or Nyx Assassin is using it. It's not worth it on an Anti-mage who relies on auto-attacking. If you want to buy Eaglesong for the Agi, then might as well go for the Butterfly which gives you better stats and evasion. Again, Ethereal will be a waste on Anti-mage.

Ethereal Blade is only good onMorphling really, IMO. Having it on Nyx is also not bad, but it wold be terrible on AM, since is he is an auto attack carry. :/